The Plague
by branbridge
Summary: .:AU:. A plague has begun to decimate the wizarding Britain's already hurt population and the greatest minds alive are thrown together by Merlin himself to find the cure. A bitter twenty-one year old Hermione Granger is thrown into a mixture of dark and light wizards. Bits of HG/LV; HG/Rabastan; HG/Terry; HG/Other FINAL PAIRING UNDECIDED (RATED FOR A REASON)


**English is not my first or my second language, so I apologize for any errors.**

Beta-d by a friend on Tumblr, but their first language is not English either so it probably didn't do much good.

_If you find any mistakes- feel free to tell me._

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* * *

"Are you Hermione Granger, brightest witch of the age?"

Hermione Jean Granger took another sip of her _Zenato Amarone Della Valpolicella _filled glass_._ She didn't particularly enjoy the smooth, bitter tasting wine, but the harsh edge reflected her mood too perfectly to pass up.

She appraises the house elf that stands in front of her; he wore a suit and was nearly a foot taller than most house elves. His ears, while still pointy, did not resemble a bat and his ears were significantly smaller than a normal elf's. She, also, noticed that the elf had spoken in proper English.

She didn't say anything for a time- instead she took a bite of her dark chocolate bar, that she had laying on the counter top, and another gulp of the bitter imported wine. A combination that accurately reflected her body's involuntary reflexes to hard situations- the acidic, harsh, bitter, bitter, bitter reaction that she has grown irrationally attached and accustomed to.

Hermione Granger is much too bitter for her olive complexion and honeyed hair to hide. Hermione is harsh and rough around the edges- sharpness (the sharpness of scissors, a casual sharpness because the sharpness is an essential part of scissors) with forced evenness that tears and rips and _hurts._ Harsh and bitter like the wine she insists on drinking.

Twenty-one years old and bitter and sharp like the old men living in run down house in muggle movies. Hermione Granger is twenty-one years old and lost- she's suffocating in nothing, breathing in bitter and bleeding contempt from her blue veins.

Silently she closes her book and goes to pour herself another glass of wine; she's been doing that a lot lately- drinking away her troubles with her expensive red wines. She doesn't understand why she prefers it to the sweet ones Harry liked, but she doesn't particularly care either.

She finally speaks, "I have been called that."

"I must apologize in advance, but these are desperate times." The elf gave her a short bow.

Hermione didn't have time to react before the elf snapped his fingers and Hermione suddenly blacked out.

* * *

_She sat at the table inside their tent, charts and ancient tomes spread across the table's surface- she's researching, because that is all she's good at. _

_However, she found it increasingly hard to focus on anything other than the utter two-ness of their hunt._

_Ron left a long time ago and she had expected his departure, but it hurt. _

_Ron was less of a Gryffindor than her, if such a thing is possible, he was too scared, too cowardly, too impolite, too ignorance and too dumb- he was always too much of something. So his running-away had not surprised Hermione or Harry, not really, it had hurt but they were both expecting it at some point. _

_They should have brought Neville instead._

_"I'm going to bed, 'Mione."_

_She looked up and smiled at her best friend, "I was going to tell you- you look terrible, you need it. Goodnight, Harry."_

_He grinned back, "Don't stay up too long, 'Mione, we're going to move tomorrow."_

_She gave a curt nod, "Don't worry, Harry, I won't."_

_"Well, good night, 'Mione."_

_She went back to her research, trying to find something that she missed. There had to be _something_ missing._

_She worked for several more hours before she got tired and decided to go outside for some fresh air._

_When she stepped out of the tent she was struck by how white the ground was. Nearly an inch of white snow was covering the ground. The sky was black and deeply contrasted by the milk-colored flakes of snow falling from its depths. It chilled Hermione to the bone._

_She sat down on a stump not far from the entrance of the tent. Her clammy hands shook as she tried to read the pages of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_._

_Tonight was her first full night with the locket, when Ron was here they had split up the time intervals into eight hour slots, but without him they don't have the time. Harry suggested they wear the locket for as long as each could. Hermione had disagreed- it was emotional and mental torture to the one wearing the locket- but her words had fallen on deaf ears so she had conceded his point._

_She hated it, having this _evil_ thing between her breasts- gently caressing the skin it laid upon, leaving a red splotch of raw-feeling skin in its wake. She hated the venomous words it left in her core, the insecurities it feasted upon and herself for allowing it to hurt her._

_She closed her book and took a long breath, in and out. _

_The feeling wasn't real; she _knew_ that, it was only the Horcrux's protection mechanism. There wasn't a deep clawing in her chest or a raw patch of skin over her heart and there wasn't a part of her that was screaming at her to give into the sweet temptation of oblivion._

_But she can't._

_Because of Harry._

_Because he needs her and she needs him._

_Her face burrows into her open hands as she begins to calm her breathing and thoughts._

_This isn't her._

_She's stronger than this._

_A chuckle._

'_Oh, my dear Mudblood, you've tried so hard to make them love you.'_

_She curled her knees towards her forehead- curling back into herself. _

_'__You learned their ways and their dreams and their weaknesses and their words and for a while, you wore it like a second skin. So why did they not love Hermione Granger? Why is it that, all your efforts have fallen dead like the bodies of your poor, poor parents?'_

_She closed her eyes and attempted block out the locket's foul words. Her efforts were in vain._

_'__It's simple, Hermione- no one can ever love a Mudblood.'_

_She lets out a small whimper from the back of her throat, it's was raw and heated and it __**hurt**__._

_Her hands fumbled to remove the vile, evil thing hanging around her neck, but stopped herself from removing it. Instead she sighed, deep and long and filled with sadness, and went to bed._

_A forced, artificial sleep that she had to compel herself to take._

_She was stronger than him and she would prove it._

_Never underestimate a mudblood._

* * *

_The sky is a strikingly clear blue and the sun is left bare of clouds, there is a soft, brisk wind that whips around the ground. The wind tugs on her midnight robes and loose hair and tickle her blank eyes._

_Hermione is the only dry-eyed._

_She stands by the casket and talks. She talks, because she is a member of the gold trio present- Harry is in hiding and doesn't know about Ron yet._

_She closes her eyes and tells them the only story her mouth can form without puking. Her throat is raw and everything is wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen, he wasn't supposed to die._

_She opens her eyes and looks out at the crowd- _they failed him_. Hermione takes a shaky breath, she can't blame them- there is no one to blame, which is hard- but she can't stand to look at them, can't stand to think their names._

_She hates them all, but can't blame them._

_She can't blame them for his stupidity, but she fucking _**hates**_ them._

_She can't blame them._

_Not at Ron's burial._

_Hermione's voice cracks- from the lack of tears no doubt- and she screams, screams, screams._

_She says, listen- I hate you. I bloody hate you all; yells with her ruined words "__**I hate you.**__"- She says this, but no one hears her. _

_She feels like her face is bleeding, like her skin has cracked and taken her heart with it. She doesn't cry, she just focuses on the fierce stabbing in her sides, the new skin being ripped and pierced. She can deal with this kind of pain, because there is nothing left._

_She continues to talk- her head is screaming and her throat is scratching at the skin that has entrapped it- there is nothing left._

_Her obscene mouth twists- there is no beauty any longer. There is nothing._

_Nothing worth having._

_She steps down and leaves, leaves, leaves and doesn't stop running when the sheer force of the wind violates her retinas agonizingly- she doesn't stop until green and purple spots overcome the entirety of her vision and her eyes tear in self-defense. _

_She vaguely registers the sound coming from the back of her throat- a harsh sobbing laughter filled with ashes - as some part of _Hermione Jean Granger_ is buried along with her friend. _

_She doesn't look back. He isn't coming back, but she isn't waiting._

* * *

_"I'm tired of life."_

_His voice comes out apathetic and hard, like wind-rushed leaves during a hail storm. Hermione turns away from her book to look at him and meets his gaze – his half-focused, green, green, green gaze. _

_He repeats himself, using a hoarse, ruined voice- a voice she's sure can't belong to her best friend."I'm tired of life."_

_The witch doesn't answer._

_Instead she stands from her chair to pour him a glass of too-strong-tea and another glass of their bitterest wine for herself._

_She sits back down after giving their former savoir his tea, one not two sugars, and downing the harsh liquid residing in her own cup. It burns._

_She doesn't complain._

_Harry takes a long sip of his drink and speaks again, "I'm tired of life, 'Mione." _

_She's tired of him repeating the same words, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she closes her eyes and allows the sound of his sad voice scratch at her brain- allows it to slow and reshape her thoughts and processes like marzipan, and she wants to say it but can't,_**she's tired of life too**_._

_Her best friend is silent as he watches his best friend shakily stand and refill her own cup. She fills it to the brim with the bitter _Amarone _and still he waits for her answer._

_She doesn't, give one that is. _

_She just silently looks at the muggle clock that hangs on the opposite wall as she fingered the twin's, Ginny's and Ron's broken clock hands- they had all landed on "DEAD" at some point and fallen broken on the Burrow's ground- that she had threaded around her neck several years ago. _

_She meets his gaze, his eyes are weary and tired- too tired to hate anymore and too weary to curse the pureblood aristocracy scum that think themselves better than them both. Too drop-dead fatigued to care that they killed his lover and friends, and too drained to hate himself for killing their children right back. He has spilled too much blood- so much that he's surprised he doesn't smell of it. _

_His eyes are begging her to give him something to awaken the part that is gone. The part that is what he was, should, could and most likely will never be again. _

_Harry is a hero that needs hope for the future and the future needs a hero who has hope._

_Hermione sees neither when she closes her eyes or meets his forest-colored gaze, but she is silent about such thoughts._

_Instead, Hermione gave him a smile- too tight and too sharp- and leaned back in her chair as she finished another glass. They sat in silence for a few more moments before she finally spoke- using her quiet, but caustic voice- "We have no right to quit yet."_

_Harry dipped his head, because he knew Hermione was right. She was always right._

_He simply sighed and stood up to pour himself some of Hermione's harsh wine. After he finished his drink he whispered, too hollow and dull in comparison to his former self, "I guess we're all tired of something."_

* * *

Her body shot upwards, the silken sheets pooling at her waist- exposing her body to the old wizard in front of her. She vaguely wondered why she was nude, but quickly pulled the sheets up to cover her bare torso in favor of screaming.

"Who in the seven hells are you?"

"Merlin, dear, but that matters not. You must be wondering where you are?"

"Yes, but I'm also wondering where my clothes are."

"In the wardrobe, you can dress after we talk. Well, you're in a secret location made by myself, Morgana and Akthuri made for just this purpose."

Hermione crossed her arms, the best she could while covering herself that is, "And what, pray tell, is that purpose."

The ancient wizard cocked an eyebrow, "Your silly war has dwindled the population to bare bones and now the scarce populace is threatened by a raging sickness."

"And what does this have to do with kidnapping me?"

"It's simple; you wouldn't be much help if you died."

Hermione narrowed her eyes, realizing what he was going to ask of her.

"Now the library here has been kept fully stocked with all the latest books as well as lost tomes, that you would probably love to get your paws on. Not only do you have access to the library but the finest minds in the wizarding world been gathered here to find a cure. Regardless of which side of this dull war they were on, you will all work together. You are safe from the plague here and can work to find the cure."

Hermione stood up, carrying her sheet along with her, "I have no love for the wizarding world; I refuse."

The old wizard raised an eyebrow, "Regardless of how the world has treated you, there is still one person you don't want to die. Do this so he will be safe of the sickness."

She stopped in her tracks, "Fine. Just leave so I can get dressed."

"Very good, you need only to exit the room to meet your fellow intellectuals. Also, I've temporarily bound your magic and taken your wand, you get both of them back when you find the cure."

He disappeared with a "pop" away leaving her, thankfully, alone before she could show her outrage at being left without her magic.

She closed her eyes and let the red sheet fall as she walked to the wardrobe. She opened it and was surprised to find muggle-style skirts and dress shirts, wizarding robes and rather provocative sleep ware. She mumbled something about perverted powerful wizards as she pulled out a pencil skirt and a white button down shirt. The shoe selection was even worse than the clothing, mostly heels and a few flats. So she quickly chose a pair of black ballet flats with a thin ankle strap.

She took in a deep breath and opened the door, focusing on how much she hated Merlin.


End file.
